Merit Scholarships

The most frequently asked questions we receive from students who are interested in Pacific University revolve around the finances and tuition of the university. We do all that we can to make sure that the financial burden of college is something our students do not have to stress over. 90% of Pacific University students receive some form of scholarship or financial aid. The main source of this statistic comes from our Merit Scholarships. Merit Scholarships are solely based on all the hard work students have done in high school, there is no application process, and they are renewable for four years at Pacific University. When high school students apply to Pacific, they send in their official high school transcript and test scores (we have no preferences between the SAT and ACT). When your admissions counselor receives these items from incoming students, they do a small calculation and immediately award the student a scholarship.

There are five different Merit scholarships: The University ($12,000 per year), the Trustee ($15,000 per year), the Presidential ($18,000 per year), the Honors ($21,000 per year), and the Founders ($24,000 per year).

When it comes to the test scores, for the ACT we look at the composite score (math, reading, science, English). For the SAT we only consider the critical reading and math sections. We also accept super scores! Super score essentially means that we allow students to take either test as many times they want, and we will select the top score from each category. For example, a student takes the SAT for the first time and scores a 650 on the critical reading and 530 on the math, giving them a total of 1190. The same student takes the test again and take and scores a 640 on the critical reading and 580 on the math, giving them a total of 1220. Instead of just accepting the total score from the second test (1220), we would take the higher critical reading score (first test = 660) and the higher math score (second test = 580) giving the student a super score of 1240. If a student is accepted in December but they retake the test again in January, we encourage them to send in their scores so that we can see if they qualify for more scholarship money. Your counselor will let students know how close they are to being able to reach the next level of scholarship. Once again, we do this so that students do not have to stress out as much on the financial side, and truly focus on enjoying their time here at Pacific University.